“Well, I guess he didn’t want to hearthatstory,” I said on a laugh.
“Don’t take it personally.” Hayley said. “I have to think all that lifting would make anybody crabby.”
I was right there with her. My Michigan sensibilities—you couldn’t live close to Detroit and not have survival instincts—had me closing and locking the door. Then I returned to her at the kitchen table. “Any other funny road names?”
“Oh, I’ve given up on those. I’m on the Landings’s website. Did you know what this place was when you decided to move here?”
I shrugged as I sat down. “It’s luxury living.” I let loose a hollow laugh. I’d grown up poor—like, dirt poor. Luxury living was something I was still adjusting to. “What’s the problem?”
“Well, for starters, they say it’s ‘thoughtfully planned and beautifully maintained’ and that it promises a ‘life well lived in one of America’s most distinguished private communities.’”
“And that’s a problem how?”
“It sounds very Stepford.”
Now that she’d brought it up, I couldn’t disagree. “I wanted to live in Savannah.”
That was the truth. When I’d decided to leave Michigan—which had been a long time coming—I’d only considered moving two places. They were my happy places. New Orleans got too many hurricanes. That left Savannah, which also suffered from hurricanes but not on the same level.
“I looked at houses in the downtown area, but a lot of them are historical,” I explained. “That seemed like a lot of work. Plus, the closer you are to downtown, the less real estate you actually get for the price. I would’ve had to live in a condo instead of a house.”
“And why is that the worst thing ever?”
I shrugged. How was I supposed to explain this to her? Hayley had grown up on a farm in Tennessee before moving to the suburbs of Savannah. She’d sat at the dinner table every night with her parents and brothers, and they’d talked about their days. I couldn’t even remember my father. He’d taken off when I was an infant. As for my mother, well, she lived life on her terms, and everybody else had to adjust.
“I just always wanted a house,” I said finally. “Something to call my own.”
Hayley glanced up. We’d discussed my mother—mostly when I’d been drunk in college—and Hayley understood the basics, but even she didn’t get it completely. I’d never told anybody the whole story about my mother.
“Okay.” Looking at my face, she quickly changed tactics. “This place is still crazy, though. Did you read up on it before you decided to live here?”
“I just liked the house.” That was true. It had beautiful white cabinets, marble countertops, and amazing tiled floors. I’d fallen in love the second I saw the huge bookshelves in the living room. I already knew exactly how I was going to decorate them.
“Well, let me enlighten you.” Hayley cleared her throat as if preparing for a great speech. “It’s a private community because they have six golf courses.”
I frowned. “They have six golf courses in Savannah?”
“No, there are six golf courses in the Landings.”
“Geez.” I couldn’t imagine hitting a ball with a stick that many times. “Weird.”
“It gets weirder … and cooler. The athletic club has pickleball and yoga.”
“I don’t do either of those things.”
She ignored me. “There are more than eight thousand residents, and the full golf membership is more than thirty grand.” Her eyes landed on me. “Did you buy the full golf membership?”
That was the most ludicrous thing I’d ever heard. “No. I do believe I signed on for the athletic membership or something, though. I just remember if I wanted to eat at the restaurants, I had to have some form of membership.”
“See!” Hayley jabbed a finger in my direction. “Stepford.”
I laughed because I couldn’t help myself.
“Let’s talk about the restaurants, though, because they’re one of the cooler aspects of this place,” she said, returning toher perusal of the Landings’s offerings. “There is Deer Creek A Coastal Grill. Yes, that’s it’s real name. Why not just call it Deer Creek?”
I shrugged. I was with her on that one. The only reason to have an overblown name was for laughs, in my book. And yes, I’d done that a few times in my books. The readers always loved it.
“Looking at the menu, it’s stuff like oysters and hearts-of-palm fries.”
